http://www.capitalgazette.com/news/busi ... 0020.00272


Posted: Thursday, October 24, 2013 8:45 am | Updated: 10:24 am, Thu Oct 24, 2013.
By SHANTEÉ WOODARDS swoodards@capgaznews.com
The only hotel on the grounds of BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport will close next month, ending a 30-year lease with the Maryland Aviation Administration.
Four Points by Sheraton BWI Airport was working on a lease extension at the property for more than a year. But the additional five years there would have called for a $2 million renovation to keep it up with the standards of Starwood Hotels & Resorts, which owns the Sheraton brand.
Business has been greatly hurt by sequestration and the renovation would not have been cost effective, General Manager Kevin Carnes said.
As a result, the 201-room hotel will close on Nov. 30. There are 105 employees working there — 70 full time and 35 part time — and so far, jobs have been found for 40 of them.
“It’s been a declining market. Business has not been as good since the sequester,” Carnes said. “The most important thing in my dealings now is to find every employee that’s here a job.”
Separately, the MAA is in the early phases of adding another hotel that would provide direct access to the airport and create competition for Four Points. The full-service hotel would be located adjacent to the parking garage.
With Four Points, the MAA plans to solicit a company to operate and manage the property for a five-year period and determine if there is a market for it going forward.
“(Extending the lease) was our plan and shared goal,” MAA spokesman Jonathan Dean said. “Our goal, our plan was to extend the current lease. That was our full expectation. We had been working with the hotel for a year on that plan.”
In August, officials from the Annapolis & Anne Arundel County Convention and Visitors Bureau cited a study that found the effects of mandated federal budget cuts had impacted county hotels. At the time, hotel occupancies in the region had been down 3 percent, largely because travel for seminars connected with Fort George G. Meade and the National Security Agency had been reined in.